


the undisclosed desires in your heart

by ProfessorESP



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Blood, Dream Sequence, Drowning, Fairy Tale Elements, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, the doc for this is called ''that really gay dream fic'', which really tells you all you need to know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 20:59:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5348339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorESP/pseuds/ProfessorESP
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were a lot of reasons Gil stopped sleeping. Stress related insomnia, anxiety over the possibility of missing developments in Mechanicsburg, fear that every moment he spent unconscious gave the fragment of his father’s mind control over his body. </p><p>But if Gil was honest with himself, the real reason was the dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the undisclosed desires in your heart

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to Para for betaing, you were a gigantic help. I busted my butt to post this on Thursday night specifically so it can be up for *checks clock* half an hour before it gets horribly jossed.
> 
> EDIT: minor edits for phrasing and word choice made 4/30/17, because apparently it's "reread and edit my published GG fic" season now.

Water rose underneath them, dark enough that Gil couldn’t see the bottom. The only light came from the storm drain above them, barely enough to see Tarvek’s face in front of him. His hair had come undone at some point; his bangs fell limp onto his face and the rest fell down his shoulders and floated in the water. His white shirt, one of the only remnants of the formal attire he’d worn earlier this evening, was plastered to his skin.

 

_Gil… Gil remembered this. They’d been in Tarvek’s box arguing when Zola had disappeared in the middle of the act, taken by the overly dramatic maniac who lived under the opera house. For some reason Tarvek had insisted on following Gil, and they’d fallen into a water trap fueled by the Seine._

 

“This is all your fault,” Tarvek panted. One of his hands slipped off the bars of the storm drain and he dipped lower into the water. Gil moved to grab him but Tarvek recovered quickly, his hand making a wet slap against the metal as he pulled himself back up. “This is all your fault,” he repeated. “I always get dragged into your—your miserable schemes, and you come out smelling like roses while I’m left covered in your muck.”

Gil let go of one of the bars and pressed a hand to Tarvek’s chest. His fingers brushed skin where Tarvek’s shirt was open.

“Tarvek,” he said, “shut up.”

He balled his fist in Tarvek’s shirt and pulled him in, smashing their lips together. Tarvek gasped and Gil took the opportunity to deepen the kiss. He tasted like water, cold and clean.

 

_This… did not actually happen._

 

Tarvek dropped a hand to curl around Gil’s neck, pulling them closer together. Gil’s nose pressed against his glasses. Tarvek slipped lower into the water, breaking the kiss and banging his forehead against Gil’s nose. Gil tangled their legs together underwater, moving his free arm around Tarvek’s waist to haul him back up again. They were pressed together now, Gil’s bare chest against Tarvek’s.

“Gil,” Tarvek breathed. Gil sucked in a breath; he couldn’t remember the last time Tarvek had used his first name, and he’d never heard him say it like _this_.

 

 _He still hadn’t, even now. Part of Gil was surprised by the fact that he_ wanted _him to._

 

“Gil,” Tarvek said again, his chest pressed close enough that it felt like they were breathing together. He cupped the back of Gil’s head and pulled him down to meet his lips again. Tarvek let go of the other bar and wrapped his arm around Gil, touching the small of his back.

The water was rising still, higher and higher. Tarvek’s lips were smooth, and they were warm where they touched, and nothing else mattered. Gil let go of the bars, tangling his other hand in Tarvek’s hair as they sank down into the water. He opened his eyes and saw nothing in the black lake but the silhouette of Tarvek’s head, framed by the dim silver light from the storm drain.

 

_They didn’t drown or let go, Colette opened the storm drain and pulled them out, this never happened, what—_

 

Gil stared up at the lights, the vibrations of the engines making his bones shake and his teeth chatter. He saw Tarvek out of the corner of his eye, squeezing into the crawlspace to lie down next to him. Gil would’ve only needed to tilt his head a little to see Tarvek clearly through his glasses, but he didn’t.

 

_They used to come here all the time. No, he used to come here all the time, whenever he needed someplace to be alone, away from the rest of the school. Tarvek had only come here once._

 

“Have you ever had a secret?” Gil asked. “Something that you couldn’t tell anyone, no matter what, that burned inside you? Something you wanted to say, desperately, even though you couldn’t?”

Tarvek was silent.

“I’m the Storm King,” Gil said.

Tarvek was still silent.

Thunder cracked outside, audible through the layers of the ship. Gil turned his head to see the space next to him empty. A shadow loomed over him.

“You were a threat,” the Baron said, Tarvek glaring at Gil from behind him. “I’m sending you home.”

“He was my friend,” Gil said.

“You were a threat,” Von Pinn repeated, leading Gil out of the school. “He cannot trust you.”

“He was my friend. He was my friend.”

 

_They… they had been friends._

 

“Let me go,” Tarvek said. He tried his best to look angry and defiant, but he was as tired and overworked as Gil was, the green glow of Punch and Judy’s tanks making his pale face look even more sickly.

“I can’t,” Gil said. “Someone needs to be here for the Clays.”

“You’ve always been better than me at biology.”

“That’s not true.”

“If it weren’t my sister wouldn’t be made of metal.”

Gil looked back at the relays, fiddling with them idly. “You should have left with the rest of the students.”

“And gone where? Home, to help my father kill more girls in his useless machine? To India, as Theo and Sleipnir’s third wheel? To my other relatives, so they could murder me a little more easily?”

Gil stayed silent. Tarvek pressed against his back, wrapping his arms around Gil’s chest. “Let me go. I can help Agatha. I know the town and the castle. I know what they’re going to want her for.”

“I can’t.” Gil didn’t turn, even when Tarvek pressed his face into the dip of his shoulder. “I can’t trust you.”

“You don’t have the luxury of not trusting me.”

“I can send Wooster instead.”

Tarvek pulled away. “He doesn’t work for you, Gil. You don’t even know if he cares about you.”

“I.. I can deal with him.”

“You need me, Gil. You don’t have a choice.”

 

_He didn’t need Tarvek. He’d managed without him before. So why did Tarvek insist..._

 

Gil stood outside of Mechanicsburg, staring up at the wall of thorns tangled over the bubble of frozen time. He could see it clearly, even in the darkness, a red glimmer-glow emanating from it like a heat lamp.

“It’s not time yet,” Agatha said from somewhere behind him.

 

_Agatha. Where was she? It’d been so long…._

 

He didn’t turn around. “I can’t wait.”

“A hundred years. That’s when it’ll come down.”

“I can’t wait. I need him. Europa needs him.”

Agatha didn’t respond. Gil walked forward, snow crunching underfoot. The thorns shrunk as he walked forward, retreating into the ground to leave him a path. He stopped in front of the limit of the bubble. The line was clear on the ground, separating the snow from the summer grass. He held up the lantern and stepped forward into the heat. It was warm, like it’d been that morning, with the humid taste of old rain in the air. The snow fell off his boots, melting first onto the grass, then the cobblestone streets.

The people stayed frozen no matter how close he got, keeping the red summer sheen that filled the rest of the bubble. They were all joyful, shaking hands, smiling, laughing, hoisting up a beer. The closer he got to the red cathedral the more he saw the worried ones. They looked up at where Castle Wulfenbach had hung, before his father fell. Some of them had turned towards the square, brows furrowed at the sound of drop armor landing in the streets.

And there was his father, standing proud and tall. Gil held the lantern up to his father’s face, seeking something in his expression. Hope? Determination? Something to justify abandoning the empire and leaving his son to clean up the mess he’d made?

He looked over to Gkika, frozen mid-jump, desperately lunging for the black level machine. Trying to protect her town. Trying to save her Heterodyne.

 

_The jaegers served the empire loyally. And look at what his father had done._

 

Gil turned away. The cathedral loomed over him, more imposing than Notre Dame and twice as dangerous. The doors were open, welcoming the crowds that had fled the square before the blast.

There were lilies inside, strewn about the aisle towards the altar. It was as red as the rest of the cathedral, built from the same block as the cornerstone. During the first service they’d slaughtered a holy man on it. Gil could see the stains, dark against the red. Hundreds of years worth of blood to scrape off the stones.

On the altar lay Tarvek.

 

_He wasn't dead. He wasn't dead. He wasn't._

 

The lilies fell all around him, strewn around the altar and over his body. His eyes were closed, hands clutching something on his chest.

At first glance his face looked serene, but when Gil looked closer he could see weariness at the edges. Tired, and worried, but resigned to it. He leaned over Tarvek, moving to brush the hair from his face. He placed the lantern on the altar. There was a gasp, as if the city had taken in a breath all at once. Something ran over Gil’s hand, warm and wet, and he looked down to see the blood falling from the altar onto the stone, the blood dripping off the knife like a fountain, the blood draining from Tarvek’s lifeless face.

 

_He could save him, he had to save him, Tarvek needed him, he just had to—_

 

“Rise and shine, prince Charming! Sleeping Beauty’s waking up!” Dupree kicked the camp chair Gil was sitting in with almost enough force to topple it over.

Gil groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. He’d been dreaming. About Sturmvoraus. Again. The dreams had been nearly constant since he… well, since he actually started sleeping often enough to start dreaming again, and the closer they’d gotten to the red cathedral, the longer and more elaborate they’d been.

“How long have I been asleep?” he asked, stretching.

“About an hour and half,” DuPree answered, shrugging.

“An hour and a—why didn’t you wake me up?”

She rolled her eyes. “Because nothing was on fire, nobody blew up, and you’re barely getting enough sleep in the first place. Come on, he’s gonna wake up soon.”

Gil rushed after her, eyes darting to check all the equipment as they walked. “Is he stable? The extraction was steady enough, wasn’t it? There’s no ill effects from the poison or the wound?”

“He’s fine,” Bang said, dragging out her words in exasperation. “They even sedated him, so he couldn’t even do that girly shriek of his when I checked on him for you.”

Tarvek did seem to be fine. He was lying unconscious on one of the cots and hooked up to an IV. His shirt had been cut away, and the stab wound properly dressed. One of the doctors called Gil over and started talking about the procedure. He listened idly, gaze flickering every so often back to Tarvek’s cot.

Two and a half years. Gil had lived for two and half years with nothing but Tarvek’s notes to work from and faith that Sturmvoraus was telling the truth. He’d trusted him, blindly, not only with his own life but with the lives of his people. From Tarvek’s perspective, Gil would’ve been gone for a day. Less than twenty four hours. And the last thing Gil had done to him was push him off an airship handcuffed to Othar Tryggvason.

“Agatha?” Tarvek’s voice, weak as it was, struck the same chord in Gil as when the Doom Bell had rung. Gil pushed past the doctor and barely stopped himself from slamming into the bed.

“She’s safe. She’s in Paris. Violetta and Zeetha are with her,” he said. He lay his hands on the cot, leaning over Tarvek.  “Sturmvoraus—”

“Gil?” Tarvek breathed. The affection—the _relief_ in that single sound made Gil pause just long enough for Tarvek to sit up and kiss him. He was warm, and for a second Gil thought that wrong, that he should be cold like cathedral crypts and rising river water.

“Oh,” he said, once Tarvek pulled away. “That’s disappointing.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tarvek demanded. “What, am I not good enough for you? Rather have one of your dance hall girls?”

“What are you— no! I’m not— I just thought I was dreaming again,” Gil said, trailing off weakly.

Tarvek stared at him a second. He leaned into Gil’s shoulder, shaking with silent laughter. “It’s nice to know you’re stupid in front of everyone that kisses you. Agatha will be glad it’s not just her.”

“Oh, get wound Sturmvoraus.” Gil flung an arm around Tarvek, pulling him in closer. “Come on, you need a new shirt and I need to brief you about the two and half years you missed.”

“Two and a half—Wulfenbach!” Gil laughed and hugged him, cutting Tarvek off mid-sentence.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he said, pressing his face against Tarvek’s shoulder.

After a pause, Tarvek pressed a kiss to his neck. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

“So many things have changed. The Other, and the empire, and your family.”

Tarvek pulled away and looked at Gil with a smile. “We can handle it. You have me to correct all your bumbling attempts at politics now.”

“You’ve got that right.” Gil said. He pulled Tarvek up, hand in hand with him. “Time to earn your keep.”


End file.
